Checkmate

by Dorothy Dunnett

  ‘Daddy Cloots says that Ham is impregnable,’ said Archie Abernethy. ‘But Daddy Cloots doesna want Mr Crawford back again. The Spanish got into Ham.’

  ‘Ham surrendered,’ said Jerott Blyth shortly. ‘And if you mean the Duke de Guise, I wish you’d say so. Mr Blacklock and I are waiting to hear what Mr Hislop has to say.’

  Danny Hislop, newly back from his interrupted duty at Péronne, was aware that he had reached his moment of reckoning. He looked round the table. At the noble, high-coloured face of the merchant of Lyon, the former Knight of St John who had not gone to Russia: who had married Lymond’s step-sister and had had to be manhandled by Lymond himself into sobriety.

  At Adam Blacklock, long-faced, sallow and gentle, with the scar on his face and the hesitation which appeared now and then in his speech because he was by profession first an artist and only a bad second, a soldier. Who had tried civilian life with the merchants in London, and had found, after all, that this band of men provided him with something he could not yet do without.

  And at Archie Abernethy the menagerie keeper, who had played a part, they said, in Lymond’s career at its most frenetic: who had supplied him with opium; trained his wife; brought his bastard back home to Scotland.

  Danny said, ‘Mr Blyth: do I by any chance face some sort of tribunal? We were eight men against thirty, and five miles away from Flavy before we even knew that Lymond hadn’t ridden off with us.’

  ‘It w-wasn’t your fault,’ said Adam impatiently. ‘He was crazy to go there in the first place, so close to Ham. Why in God’s name did he risk it?’

  ‘Business,’ said Danny. ‘According to Strozzi. Business with the old biddy who lived there. He must have gone back, I fancy, to rescue her. An essay in strongmindedness expected of Chevaliers of the bloody Order.’

  ‘They were after intelligence,’ Archie said. ‘Him and Strozzi. They were after intelligence. They left Compiègne on Tuesday together.’

  ‘And took three days to get to Ham?’ said Adam ironically. Jerott opened his mouth.

  ‘Wait,’ said Danny. ‘You haven’t heard everything.’

  He looked round again at the three diverse, unbending faces. He said, ‘Lymond wasn’t captured by chance. The Spaniards at Ham knew he was coming before the old woman did. He was sold by someone. And I know who it is.’

  Sitting very still, Jerott Blyth looked at him. His face was flushed. ‘Strozzi?’

  ‘If Piero Strozzi or I had betrayed Lymond, we would hardly have interfered with his capture,’ said Danny dryly. ‘In fact, neither of us knew he was making for Flavy. Who did?’

  ‘Outside this room?’ said Jerott. His flush had become deeper.

  ‘And inside it,’ said Danny Hislop.

  It was Adam’s hard hand that fastened on Jerott’s arm as he scraped his chair back, swearing. He continued to hold him even when Jerott jumped to his feet, dragging the artist half with him. ‘You upstart church-get,’ said Jerott. ‘You serve two years in Russia and run at the first blink of trouble. In all the years we three have fought under Francis Crawford, none of us has left him in enemy hands and come back with a whole skin to tell of it.’

  ‘That isn’t fair, Jerott,’ said Adam sharply. ‘He went back to Flavy and found it deserted. What we have to do is make plans to get Francis out, not attack one another.’

  Under Adam’s hand, Jerott sank into his seat. ‘He made an accusation,’ he said. ‘Let him substantiate it. Who knew Francis was going to Flavy? I didn’t. But of course, I couldn’t prove it.’

  Adam ignored the sarcasm. ‘Nor did I,’ he said quietly. ‘But I can’t prove it either. Archie?’

  The black hooded eyes in the scarred face turned on Adam, and then without expression, round them all. Finally, ‘Mistress Philippa knew,’ said Archie Abernethy. ‘But she wouldna tell nor let on by mischance. And I kent. But I dinna chittle.’

  Jerott was staring at the tough, wrinkled face. ‘You knew, did you?’ he said. ‘I suppose you also knew why Lymond and Strozzi went off together in the first place, if Strozzi didn’t intend to go to Flavy?’

  The brown face staring back at him was still impassive. ‘I do,’ Archie said. ‘And it’ll be abroad soon enough. They went to spy for the taking of Calais.’

  ‘Lymond told you?’ said Danny.

  The veteran of many animals and many wars shook his head. ‘I overheard. It made no difference. I can keep ma mou’ clemmed. Ye said ye kent the informer, Mr Hislop.’

  ‘So I did,’ said Danny Hislop. Since Jerott’s outburst he had become formal and very succinct. ‘Archie: you and Mr Crawford took two days to come from Saint-Germain.’

  The black eyes did not waver. ‘We stopped at Saint-Cloud.’

  ‘I was told,’ said Danny, ‘that you had to stop at Saint-Cloud because Mr Crawford was too drunk to go any further?’

  There was a silence. Archie shrugged his narrow shoulders. ‘It was too late to go on. He’d had a drop. Yes.’

  ‘Encouraged by you. He’d had more than a drop at Lyon, hadn’t he, when you brought him to the door the last night we were there? When the Paris courier came, it took twenty minutes—twenty minutes—to rouse him.’

  ‘He had had a fair amount taken,’ Archie admitted. ‘It had been a hell o’ a day.’

  ‘In which he saw a surprising amount of yourself. Considering that you were attached, at that time, to the service of Mistress Philippa. Why did you leave Mistress Philippa and join Mr Crawford at Lyon, Archie? Were two attempts to injure him not sufficient?’

  Adam said, ‘Jerott, sit down. He’s doing it all in good faith. He doesn’t know Archie as we do. Danny: what you say isn’t possible. But tell us what you think is wrong, and then Archie can answer us.’

  ‘I’ve told you,’ said Danny. His voice was perfectly firm, although the colour had retreated a little, out of temper, from the summer freckles on his undistinguished, snub-nosed face. ‘But if you want further details, I have them. Lymond left the Governor’s house once, in monk’s dress in Lyon. Archie followed him. If I hadn’t noticed him watching the house, I shouldn’t have noticed Lymond either. They both went up the hill. And while they were up the hill, Abernethy tried to kill him.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Adam sharply. ‘You misinterpreted something you saw.’

  ‘Did I?’ said Danny. ‘When I came upon them, Lymond had Abernethy by the throat and was flinging him over the cliffside. He only stopped because he was persuaded it was all a mistake.’

  ‘Perhaps it was,’ Jerott said. He looked, troubled, at Archie, who said nothing.

  ‘Perhaps it was,’ agreed Danny grimly. ‘Then explain this away. Lymond and young Philippa were attacked in the fog that night in Lyon. Afterwards he went off with the Président and one of the merchants to the For Vénus. You know Lymond. There was no secret about what he wanted or where they were going; but Lymond didn’t stay in the house. He came out alone and walked straight through a traboule, where I lost him. I came across him again at the waterside.’

  ‘You were playing his bodyguard?’ said Jerott.

  Danny looked at him. ‘I had begun to be concerned for his safety. I ran down the rue de I’Angelle and saw him through the mist in the rue des Hebergeries, making for the Port St Paul steps down to the river. He turned right, down the steps and out of sight. I was still a good way off when Abernethy came dodging down past the Six-Grillets and over the road to the steps, scooping up a rock from the road as he went.’ He stopped.

  ‘And?’ said Jerott. Adam, looking at Archie, said nothing.

  ‘The story ends there,’ said Danny evenly. ‘At that moment I was struck from behind, and when I recovered, Archie and Lymond had gone and I was lying on the road with my purse cut. I searched the streets for a while, and then made my way back to the Hôtel de Gouvernement. What happened next, Adam will remember. Archie brought our revered leader back, helped by a printer friend. He was incapably drunk, and he had a fresh wound in the nape of his neck. The kind of
thing made by heaving rocks carelessly. Mr Abernethy will tell you if I’ve been fair to him.’

  There was a long silence. Then Archie Abernethy shifted on his hard seat. ‘Aye: You’ve been fair enough,’ he observed. He appeared to be thinking.

  ‘Well?’ rapped Jerott. ‘What happened? I take it you didn’t assault him. Who did? Who induced him to break all his own hand-written regulations about wine, the mother of all vices?’

  ‘I did,’ said Archie Abernethy. ‘I wouldna deny it in front of such a number of sharp-eyed solemncholy gentlemen. I flung the stone that dropped Mr Crawford. With the good advice of the printer Bonhomme and yon pisse-pot prophet Nostradamus I filled him with liquor and kept him that way till you got him. Ye complain it took twenty minutes to rouse him. By God, ye were lucky. By God, ye were lucky to be able to rouse him at all.’

  Adam said in sudden anger, ‘You are talking in riddles.’ His hands were pressed hard together.

  ‘No doubt,’ said Archie. His voice, his dark skin were suffused as never before with the signs of a towering passion. ‘You’re friends o’ Francis Crawford, ye tell me, but ye take little heed to what is happening to him. You force him to France, and dust your hands of it. You foul his birthright with witchcraft and devilment and see no harm when he walks away whistling. You saw him at his desk, all of you, that morning in Lyon, and thought nothing ailed him but alcohol.’

  Danny’s skin from white had turned a patchy red. He said, ‘He kept still. So would I, if I’d drunk that amount.’

  ‘He kept still. He was empty of blood,’ Archie said. ‘He kept his hands out of sight, because the cuffs of his sleeves covered bandages. He left the brothel yon night. He picked up glass by the Customhouse. And when I reached him, he’d ripped through both wrists with it.’

  *

  ‘My lord of Allendale,’ said the remembered voice mockingly. ‘Come then, South Wind, and perfect my garden.’ And as the cell door at Ham shut behind him, Austin Grey moved forward to see his uncle’s prisoner.

  He had been rigged out in elegant black, quite unlike the student’s buff jacket at Douai. But the sardonic smile was the same; under the same crudely marked traces of fisticuffs. The man’s smile became wide.

  ‘Petite coquette (co co co co dae) qu’esse cy? Step on the mat, Marquis.’

  ‘What happened at Douai is over,’ said Austin. ‘I am here to satisfy my own sense of what is fitting. In case Lord Grey was too occupied, I have to convey to you our apologies.’

  ‘Apologies? Now that,’ said Philippa’s husband, ‘is extremely novel. I find it even alarming. And as it happens, uncalled-for. I am here, like Rabelais, because I want to be, with my three packets of ash labelled Poison. Poison for the King; Poison for Savoy; Poison for Ruy Gomez. I didn’t think of Poison for Uncle. I thought your gallant kinsman was in Guînes again.’

  ‘We are leaving for Guînes tomorrow. I wished to apologize,’ said Austin with a hard-held and meticulous courtesy, ‘for the death of your nurse, Madame Jourda. It was inexcusable. I wished to ask what relatives we should send for.’

  He had set himself to perform this mission, knowing he would receive little thanks for it. He had not expected the howl of delight with which that was greeted. He stood, concealing his shock, as Crawford seized a chair and flung himself astride it. ‘A spark!’ he said. ‘A riposte! After all these years, a reciprocating witticism! You were due to apologize for the vile stratagem, I would have you know, that led to my capture. Not for the demise of an elderly nursemaid. Forget her and tell me your other reason for braving the cockpit. Or shall I try to guess it?’

  ‘I am sure you could,’ said Austin Grey. He moved to the wall and leaned against it, a gentle man whose youth disguised, as yet, a steadfastness which no one so far had had real cause to plumb. He said, ‘Your life has taught you how to smell out weakness. Before you whet your claws on me, let me give you some news I have from Scotland.’

  ‘I know that too. I have heard the nightingale herself. My brother is well, my mother failing,’ said Lymond. ‘And Kate Somerville, I imagine, wants her daughter back.’

  ‘She wants you back also,’ said Austin. ‘And not for her own sake or yours. You know a clash of doctrine is coming in Scotland. The Queen Regent has to tolerate the Reformed religion now, but once the war is over, her French brothers will want her to fight it.’

  ‘Perhaps she’ll lose,’ offered Crawford. His manner was helpful. ‘Wouldn’t that intrigue you? I thought the Lord James Stewart seemed an able man. He invited Knox, I hear, back to Scotland. That argues a certain amount of philosophical stamina.’

  ‘Knox didn’t go,’ Austin Grey said. ‘But if he does, Lord James and Erskine of Dun and all those who don’t agree with the established Church may well rally round him.’

  ‘To rend the surplice, the corner-cap and the tippet, the badges of idolators. Quite. So what agitates Kate? Not the condition of Scotland. As Guicciardini said, there is a great difference between having discontented subjects and having desperate subjects. In any case, being a woman, although unique among women, Kate thinks of the particular and not of the general. Therefore she is afraid for my family, who like Achilles, would rather till the ground than live in pale Elysium. She thinks that Richard wants me to leave my frantic pleasures to come and help him? No, hardly that either. What, then?’

  ‘You under-estimate Philippa’s mother,’ said Austin Grey. ‘Just as you are quite astray, it seems to me, in all your dealings with Philippa. Mistress Somerville thinks the Scottish Queen-Regent needs an adviser. A soldier uncommitted to either side whose opinion she can trust at this juncture.’ He could hear with his own ears how pompous it sounded. Crawford’s air was one of obedient attention.

  ‘It doesn’t sound much like Kate,’ he said, damn him. ‘It sounds a tempting idea, though, from your viewpoint: to have me sitting in Scotland with jack, knapstall, splent, spear and axe being hit on the head by both parties, while France and Spain kiss and make friends again. You haven’t spoken to your uncle yet, have you? He had an even better idea.’

  Austin Grey thought of his uncle, for thirty years intermittently guardian of some part of England’s holdings in France, when he was not chastising Scotsmen in Scotland. According to Arthur his son, Hannibal was sworn an enemy to Rome at nine years of age, and my father bred one to France at fourteen. The mirror of military valour, held up to Austin by his mother since he, too, was less than fourteen. The epitome of the life that he despised and disliked and followed because he would not displease his mother, and because, whatever else it lacked, it upheld honour. He said, ‘What did my uncle suggest?’

  He knew by the other man’s smile that he was going to be baited again. ‘That he should connive,’ Lymond said, ‘at my escape to Russia, in return for betraying all I know of the French armies and their forthcoming battle plan. A neat device, with advantages to everybody and a built-in safeguard in case I should be seized with a vile urge to egg the bargain. Whether I end up in Russia or Hecate’s garden with thrice-folding portals of ebony, the King of France will never employ me again.’

  Not only the use of the future tense, but something in the other man’s mocking, mellifluous voice brought Austin Grey erect from the wall-stones. ‘My uncle made you such an offer. And you accepted it?’ Hard on disbelief had rushed contempt. He did not try to hide it.

  Crawford of Lymond uncrossed his arms and rising, twitched round the tall chair so that it faced Austin invitingly. Then he approached. One could recoil. One could allow him, as Austin did, to stretch his hand and move oneself, grim-faced, to sit in it. ‘Prepare, my dear child,’ said Lymond, ‘to receive a revelation. Ham is not a Court of Love. Piero Strozzi is not a true, Christian knight and neither is God’s silly vassal, the monarch. Muchos Grisones, in fact, y pocos Boyardos. Modern war is fought by a number of strong, sweaty horsemen with constipation, who have their eyes on power, on wealth and on glory, and who obey the rules just when it pleases them. Your uncle and I understand e
ach other perfectly. I am going to Russia. He has the information he needed. The French are going to Calais.’

  Co co co co dae. Austin Grey looked up at the man standing watching him, smiling, his hands lightly folded behind him. He said, ‘Can you trust a bargain, then, with no honour?’

  ‘I trust your uncle’s,’ said Lymond. ‘He has his reasons for wanting me to go to the fate which pride and lust prepare. And he seems to trust mine. I have told him all I know. I had just come back from Calais to Flavy when I was captured. The only person which stands to lose by the transaction, indeed, is yourself. Are you still in love with my wife?’

  Austin Grey stood up. For a moment he remained face to face with Philippa’s husband. Then, turning, he moved to the window and stood there. ‘Ham is not a Court of Love,’ he said. ‘There is no reason why I should listen to that sort of question, or answer it.’

  ‘No, there isn’t, but you’ve done both,’ said Crawford. He conveyed a faint impatience. ‘I know I shouldn’t soil my lips with the name of your loved one, but it occurred to me that I could be helpful, unless, like Antisthenes, you would rather be furious than voluptuous. The young Queen Mary has made her a lady of honour, and restrained her from leaving France while I am here.’

  ‘At your prompting?’ said Austin. He had learned to control his face but not his colour, which had left his brown skin entirely, although he did not know it.

  The other man sighed. He rambled to the table and picking up a steel pen threw it accurately into the centre of the door where it hung like a shot parraqueet, quivering. It dropped, and he hitched himself on the table corner. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘that Philippa Somerville is beyond earthly criticism. It is not her fault that I have esoteric tastes and I happen to require and consort with professionals. I have resisted, with ease, the temptation to ravish her. I have saved her for you: sweet, jolly, virginal and able to repeat filthy verses in Turkish. There has merely occurred a slight hitch in handing her over.’